In recent years, it has become mandatory under rules and regulations governing the shifting of transmission shifters for vehicles to require a safety feature in which the shift lever cannot be shifted out of park until the brake has been applied and/or until the steering column has been unlocked. Numerous different constructions have been developed and suggested for preventing such shifting of the shift lever. These constructions have in the past been very complicated and have required extensive modification of existing shifting mechanisms Further, most of these systems have involved solenoids in which current is constantly applied to the solenoid to hold the locking means in a locked position for preventing the shifting of the shift lever.
In addition, prior park lock and ignition key lock mechanisms have been quite noisy and, therefore, undesirable from the noise standpoint of view. In addition, prior art constructions have been extremely expensive because of their complications and particularly, because of the number of parts involved in the assembly work involved in assembling all of the parts.
Further, to my knowledge, no locking mechanisms have been devised which can be easily incorporated in existing shifters
Therefore, it has become desirable to provide for a simple arrangement of a means for locking the shifting lever in the park position until the brake has been applied and/or the ignition key has been turned unlocking the steering column.
An object of this invention is to provide a simplified locking system which requires a minimum number of parts, is relatively inexpensive, and is less noisy than most prior art structures.